Bringing Beer Back Home

My latest story for Edible Milwaukee is out in the summer issue. It’s all about some of the local growers trying to revive the state’s hop and barley tradition.

Let’s just say I jumped at the chance to explore Wisconsin beer, past and present. I remember the first time I saw hops growing at the truly wonderful Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, New York. It was actually the hops that led me there – I saw them climbing up the poles in one of the gardens and just had to get out to see what in the world was growing in there! I’ve since been to the American Hop Museum in eastern Washington so hops in their pre-beer state are no longer foreign to me. But I still thrill at the sight of them. There’s something magical about the vines and flowers.

I learned a lot telling this story (I won’t spoil it by telling you everything before you can even read it – something I tend to do to my husband all the time) but one of the things that sticks with me is something brewmaster Grant Pauly from 3 Sheeps Brewing in Sheboygan told me. Wisconsin’s long brewing history isn’t just about the beer. It’s also about the equipment to make that beer and that the state’s long brewing history means that many of the things needed to make and sell beer commercially – from the tap handles to the cardboard six-pack holders – can be sourced from local businesses. It makes perfect sense but had never before occurred to me.

Here’s the story. Enjoy!

Long before Wisconsin became America’s Dairyland, Wisconsin brewed beer. The state had barley, wheat, ice, and water. It had hops. And most important of all, a beer-thirsty people called Wisconsin home.

So thirsty that in 1839, German settlers in Milwaukee, desperate for a taste of home, mixed whiskey and vinegar with a little limestone to create a head that they called “Essig whiskey heimer” (something like homemade vinegar whiskey or vinegar whiskey of home). The opening of the city’s first brewery – by a Welshman, not a German, alas – the next year hopefully put an end to that frightening blend.